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The Current Transcript for June 7, 2019

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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It's always been a dream of mine to represent Canada in the FIFA Women's World Cup. I'm just dreaming about the day I get to step on the field. It's just something that I can only imagine until it really happens.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Well Jordyn Huitema doesn't have to imagine any more because it's all about to happen for her and her Canadian team-mates as the FIFA Women's World Cup is kicking off in France today. The women's game is great to watch. It has been gaining in popularity. But it still pales in comparison to the way the men's game is marketed and celebrated and the money and prestige that comes with it. In a moment we're talking about the state of the women's game. Then life isn't a game and neither is marriage. But according to this British professor and writer when it comes to matrimony men are the big winners, and we women, not so much.

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The healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who have never married never had children. If you're a man you should probably get married. If you're a woman, don't bother.

PC: Paul Dolan joins me and we'll hear from some women on the topic of all the single ladies in half an hour. Plus, she has a soulful Canadian singer songwriter but Jully Black has got another message to send right now.

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I'm one that's typically on social media quite often but now it's meaningful. I unfollowed 5000 people. You know I really deliberately decided to see on my feed where I want to be.

PC: Put down your phone in an hour we'll talk about unplugging from our devices so we can truly connect. Hi I'm Pia Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

Despite growing audience, women's soccer still fighting for respect, says journalist

Guests: Carrie Serwetnyk, Sonja Missio, Rachel Allison

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COMMENTATOR: Sinclair we're tied. Fleming is here. Canada. Oh Canada big red beauty. It sprungs again for Canada...

[Sounds: Field noise, audience cheering]

PC: Sinclair, Fleming, Labbe and the final whistle of the bronze medal game in the 2016 Summer Olympics. And that is a medley of highlights from the Canadian women's soccer team over the past three years. And it is time to get ready for more. The Women's World Cup tournament opens today in France and the women, not just the Canadian women, but female soccer players around the world have come a long way. While some can make a living in professional football today the vast majority cannot. However this year's prise money for the Women's World Cup is 30 million dollars U.S. That is double what it was for the last tournament back in 2015. But when you compare that to the men who made 400 million dollars in Russia last year. For more on the state of the women's game we have reached three people. Carrie Serwetnyk is a Team Canada women's soccer veteran. She played on the national team from 1986 to 1991 and she's the first woman named to the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame. She joins us on the phone from Paris. Rachel Allison is a sociology professor at Mississippi State University and the author of Kicking Centre: Gender and the Selling of Women's Professional Soccer. She's in our Paris studio. And Sonja Missio is a soccer journalist and co-founder of unusual efforts. It's an online publication supporting women in soccer journalism. She's here with me in Toronto height all three of you.

CARRIE SERWETNYK: Good morning.

RACHEL ALLISON: Morning.

SONJA MISSIO: Hi there.

PC: Carrie Serwetnyk, let me begin with you. You're in France for the World Cup. What is the feel like? What is the atmosphere like?

CARRIE SERWETNYK: I have to say it's amazing buzz right now. I'm at the FIFA Women's Convention and there are leaders from all over the world from prime ministers to leaders and sport and media. We can say it's going to be the biggest sporting event ever for women. It's so exciting. They're expecting over one billion viewership around the world. They're saying that's five times the Super Bowl and we've already sold over 930,000 tickets for this tournament that just started. So it's just already people are so excited.

PC: And so compare that and the state of women's soccer and how it's changed since you played the game.

CARRIE SERWETNYK: Absolutely. I mean I was back in the Stone Age and it was a crazy time for me because I was playing for Canada I was also playing at the University of Carolina where nine my team-mates won the first women's World Cup. And you know they started all of this right. We had the big crowds back in China and the United States and so this isn't a new phenomenon, but I think for sure Canada has grown so much in the last decade that we could have only dreamt to have what players have now. Often I have to admit that I can be a bit pessimistic about needing change, wanting change. But right now I'd say there is this wonderful pinnacle of where things are fantastic and they're only going to get better.

PC: OK Sonja Missio, how do you bring that the health of women's soccer in 2019? Professional women's soccer.

SONJA MISSIO: I think it's amazing. You walk down the street here and you ask anyone to name a Canadian professional soccer player. And I think nine out of 10 people will say Christine Sinclair in any other country where a women's name pops up before a man's is very very rare. That said, I think we still have a long way to go on the international stage but it's very very optimistic and amazing and people are getting so excited about this tournament. It's not something that I saw growing up and now it's just the norm.

PC: Rachel Allison you know Kerry made the point that so many people are going to be watching the World Cup the Women's World Cup on TV and online media. You have researched how women's soccer is marketed. How does that compare to the men's game?

RACHEL ALLISON: Yes. So I think that if we look at the women's game and the question of marketing how it's been built and sold and how the image of women's soccer has been communicated to the public, I think that we've seen an emphasis often on difference on the fact that this is women's football. That message really I think has resonated with a lot of fans that the message that what women do on the field is complemented with what they often do off the field, that they are communicating and reaching out to fans. They're often perceived as more accessible to fans and others than men in professional sport. And to some extent they have to be because historically and even in many cases today those resources aren't there. They're really working off the field as well to empower and to inspire the next generation with the hope that in the future a greater resource as an opportunity will be there for others.

PC: Okay. You have all hinted at this next point which is even if there are changes the fact remains that there are inequities. For example total prize money at the Women's World Cup is 30 million dollars it is double what it was at the last one but the men's World Cup the last one it was 400 million. Sonja Missio should FIFA be doing more?

SONJA MISSIO: One hundred percent without a doubt I think we talk a lot about you know what is being done in the locker room and what's on the pitch what's happening there and fighting for equality there. But when it gets down to it you can only get equality from the top down. So looking at FIFA's structure looking at how the boardroom is situated how many women are working in FIFA's you know top business bases. And once we get equality actually in the structural organization then we can start seeing the equality, filter down and pushed down into the actual game.

PC: And then there's of course them the money equity. Hope Solo the goalkeeper for the U.S. team, she said this week that the disparities in money amount to entrenched more male chauvinism in the sport. We have Australian footballers women footballers, who've written to FIFA about the money disparities. Carrie Serwetnyk, FIFA says you know we're making progress on that front but on the money question where do you stand?

CARRIE SERWETNYK: So I am in a bubble right now because I', at this conference and I just listened to Janet Infantino the FIFA president speak, and he said- first of all he said women are more than 50 percent of the world population. He said I have a conflict of interest. I have four daughters. They're 80 percent of the household. He said you know no I've only about speaking. It's more about doing something about it. And so he has now dedicated women's division. They don't want to just copy and paste from the men's program. They want to create sort of more of a unique brand and they have a new women's strategy that can be implementing change. So those are all positive things right. And they're on their way up. I really believe, especially being here. But the thing that hits my mind a little bit is back in Vancouver many people didn't know the women's World Cup was starting. I barely saw any print media about the women's World Cup coming up. There's been no you know public showings of the games that I know of. And I love the Raptors and I'm into them, but you know like there's showings across the country with that buzz. And I think maybe once Canada starts playing that that might shift. But I think we just hosted the last World Cup. So we're not immune to knowing about the women's World Cup. I wish our own political leaders or media leaders or people like organize this in advance.

PC: But what about the question of compensation? Because frankly they're just not getting paid what the men get paid.

CARRIE SERWETNYK: Well you know it's changing. So yesterday there the president of Leone's football club. He's he said he told us that they give the same infrastructure, the same media opportunities, the same staff, doctors, physio and transportation for the girls. They've invested in women's football. So the women are getting paid well. And he said it's been an amazing return on investment. They have over 25000 fans in all of their games. That's like a connect game of make believe etc.. And so you know his point was if you do invest in the women then it is coming back two fold, you know 100 fold. And so I think that's the thing that needs to change. Like why Toronto FC or Vancouver Whitecaps not have a professional team. So it's the leaders who need to be making these changes. And frankly I don't think they care. And so that's the thing that needs to shift around the world. There are like she's in the Premier League now that have women's teams. Europe is changing. And so maybe we're the ones that are now behind on this because they can see that the value. They can see it brings more members to their group.

PC: Let me hop in here. Rachel Allison the Canadian team recently reached a deal on compensation that is not the case in the U.S. A lawsuit has been launched by the American national team. How big is the pay gap between the men and the women?

RACHEL ALLISON: Yeah. The pay gap in the United States is stark. It's longstanding and despite action on the part of the U.S. women for the past four years since the last Women's World Cup cycle we haven't seen that shift as much as many players would want. There was a new agreement that was reached in the U.S. after 2015 that did improve the status of the women's team but the improvements were somewhat minor. The gap in pay especially remains acute and the U.S. women have taken this head on. They've brought this issue into this tournament and I hope that as a result we're going to see meaningful change.

PC: And so when Hope Solo says look this is amounts to entrenched male chauvinism, do you agree with that?

RACHEL ALLISON: I do agree with that to a large extent. I think that this has been the result of women second class status in the sport. And I think as other speakers were alluding to, this is an issue of leadership of leaders not taking the women's game as seriously and considering the commercial opportunities that exist in the women's game and really putting the resources into the women's game. But I think that you know we haven't seen change without pressure. We have been seeing improvements in the women's game and I think that this tournament in France is going to be a testament to a lot of that. But we have to push the conversation as fans, as researchers, as players, we have to be putting pressure on leaders in sport organizations for continued change especially after this tournament tournament's over and a lot of the media spotlight goes away.

SONJA MISSIO: And just to add to that I think FIFA does have a large role to play. I mean we touched upon it before the last one's World Cup was in Canada and I had a chance to talk to Sepp Blatter the then president of FIFA at the time and I asked him about what FIFA is doing in order to help equality and his answer back to me was football is macho. And he was just flat out. I mean there's a lot we can unpack about Sepp Blatter but the fact that that was his first answer that women are essentially a second class citizen when it comes to men, that there is the men's and then there's the women's end it is so far behind. And if that's how it's thought about institutionally, there is so much leg room to go.

PC: That's an interesting point you bring up because what you're talking about there is the culture that surrounds the game and of the game. And I want to talk more about that in terms of how the players are treated. So in 2018 the first Ballon D'or, soccer's biggest prise was handed out to a woman Ada Hegerberg of Norway won it. But during the presentation things went a bit sideways. Take a listen.

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[French speech]

PC: So if you didn't make that out, Ada Hegerberg wins the Ballon D'or and then she's asked by the presenter if she can twerk. Sonja you're just- your eyes are just right on cringing there. I mean what did that moment say to you?

SONJA MISSIO: I mean it says so much. It says the where the lack of respect is, where the fact that this is the top athlete in her field and that is the question. And the interesting thing about Ada is she's not going to be at this women's World Cup. She has said that she is not going to play until equality is there. So the fact that she's on the world's biggest stage she's won the top prize, and still she is fighting for her position.

PC: Carrie Serwetnyk, when you saw that you thought what?

CARRIE SERWETNYK: Well this is where I come from. I run a charity called equal play. It's to create positive changes for girls on and off the field. And I've done a free program in 25 elementary school that year on the East Side in Vancouver, a two month program and really started off as advocacy, for a change before a World Cup happened in 2015. But one of the reasons I did this is if you go on any elementary school playground you're going to see the boys totally like controlling the field. Usually they're checking the girls off and tell them they suck, and tell them they're too slow, and tell them they can't play well. And there's all kinds of like very discriminatory things that the boys say to little girls right. And the worst part that can happen with that, that's fine, is if a girl actually believes this. And they do it often. They don't co-play. Our program shifts that. It's just girls playing with each other. We've had 5000 girls go through. And so I'm not surprised at these comments because this is the sort of harassment that girls just often hear from boys, whether they even realize they're saying this. They probably doesn't realize you saying that because that's just how he's communicated with girls all the time. And so there needs to be lessons here on how to treat little girls and how to treat women who are super successful in their careers. I'm sure you could talk to any doctor or lawyer or some high powered women and she's hearing this kind of harassment all the time. And it's a little bit like ha ha. But this is obviously we can see this hurts the progress for girls to feel respected in their successful lives.

PC: Rachel Allison what do you look around the world, are there countries that are actually making more progress and treating their players better than the examples that have been cited?

RACHEL ALLISON: We have seen progress. As I said before progress hasn't come without often push without activism on the part of players. For instance I think about the case of Norway which is interesting which did in the last year or so and announced equal pay for its men's and women's teams, which is certainly a step in the right direction. And yet still it's Norway's top player is sitting out of this women's World Cup because she said it's not just about the money. Money is incredibly important of course but it's not the only issue. It's a bigger issue of how women are perceived, how they are treated and their fundamental training and travel conditions as well as their pay. And so I think we have absolutely seen cases of progress. And I feel very optimistic that we will continue to see these. But it's not always just a linear path forward. Oftentimes we also see steps backward. And we see a lot of really uneven diffusion of change globally. There are some countries that are making steps towards equality. There are other countries in fact countries where women's teams still have no opportunity to play and are not going to appear in this women's World Cup where disparities remain enormous.

PC: Okay I don't want to sugar coat this but the fact is that today the tournament kicks off, and a lot of people are going to be watching what's going on the pitch and really enjoying themselves. So just before we go and really quickly Sonja Missio, how's Canada going to do in this tournament?

SONJA MISSIO: I think we're going to do quite well. I mean we're now under a different coach and you know everyone in the world watching Christine Sinclair to see if she's going to break the record. So I think there's a lot of pressure on the women but I think they're going to do really well and they're you know live up to that expectation. I'm very optimistic.

PC: Rachel Allison, you're American. Can your national team take the top prize or who do you who do you think's going to do that?

RACHEL ALLISON: Well my heart is obviously all for the United States team. I hope they do really well. I'm also really looking forward to other teams I'm including host team France. I think they've got a great chance as well.

PC: Carrie Serwetnyk, what are you looking for on the pitch as this tournament unfolds?

CARRIE SERWETNYK: Well to be honest I think I'm leaning towards France winning the World Cup this time. I believe they've had amazing team over the past few years but they could barely hit a barn when [unintelligible]. And so maybe having a home field advantage will be like we'll go their way. I also think other European teams that are bordering France like Germany and England, maybe Spain and Holland too will do well. But I think it's going to be a dominant European semi-final group.

PC: Well we will all be watching. Thank you very much to all three of you appreciate your time.

CARRIE SERWETNYK: Thank you.

RACHEL ALLISON: Thank you.

SONJA MISSIO: Thank you.

PC: Carrie Serwetnyk is a team Canada women's soccer veteran and the first woman in the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame. Rachel Allison is a sociology professor at Mississippi State University and the author of Kicking Centre: Gender and the Selling of Women's Professional Soccer. They're both in Paris to see the women's World Cup. Sonja Missio is a soccer journalist and co-founder of unusual efforts that is an online publication supporting women in soccer journalism. She was here with me in our Toronto studio. All right. The CBC News is next. And then the so-called wedding season is upon us. So will getting hitched make you happy, or happier. It may depend on your gender according to Paul Dolan the author of a controversial new book that says marriage may make men happy but leave women miserable. We're going to get into the happily ever after debate, after the news. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. We're back in just a bit.

Don't pity the single ladies, author says — they're probably happier than you

Guests: Paul Dolan, Andrea Mrozek, Bella DePaulo

PC: Hi I'm Piya Chad Patty. And you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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PC: Still to come we've all heard of people who try out a digital detox and you may have wondered about taking a break from your own devices and swearing off social media at least for a while. In half an hour I'll be joined by singer songwriter Julie Black who's done it and she's urging kids and adults to try to unplug in order to truly connect. But first marital bliss or abyss.

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VOICE 1: Think about it. If you are single after graduation there isn't one occasion where people celebrate you. We have birthdays, oh, no no no. We all have birthdays. That's a wash. I am talking about the single gal. Hallmark doesn't make a 'Congratulations you didn't marry the wrong guy' card. And where is the flatware for going on vacation alone?

VOICE 2: You're right.

PC: That is Sarah Jessica Parker playing Carrie Bradshaw on Sex in the city and lamenting the injustice of buying yet another wedding gift. Well she and her single friends go on celebrated but it could be that for women like Carrie and her friends and women like them in real life that the single life is a gift in itself. A couple of decades since Sex and the City premiered the single life isn't just more common. It is arguably more accepted that it may be the true path to happiness, for women at least. Paul Dolan is a Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and is the author of Happy Ever After. He is making headlines for his comments that research shows unmarried, childless women are often much happier than their coupled counterparts. By the by, Paul Dolan is a married man with two daughters and he's with us from Brighton, England. Hello to you.

PAUL DOLAN: Hello to you too. Thank you for having me on your show. One daughter one son.

PC: One daughter and one son. Thank you for the correction.

PAUL DOLAN: No it's OK it's an unimportant traffic case.

PC: It's important to you. Paul, you say that women who are unmarried and childless are much happier. You base that conclusion on what?

PAUL DOLAN: Okay so I mean the context of those comments within relation to a much bigger talk about narratives about how we ought to live our lives which is what Happy Ever After is about, and marriage is one of those - there's nine narratives in the book and it's one of those narratives. And compared to what people expect, particularly single women, to feel which is that they're lonely sad and miserable, the evidence suggests something quite different. And as you said in many cases single women are just as happy and and often happier than their married counterparts. So it's a little bit more nuanced than the headlines you know saying that they're the happiest of all. Of course as I suppose anyone would know really that you know if you're happily married that could be great. But there's large numbers of people that are unhappily married. And that's not so good especially if you added the separation which obviously makes people miserable - you get to be happier when you divorce by the way - but you know if you're looking at life's gamble of whether, as a woman, you should get married or not, it's not all obvious that you that you should. And if those gambles play out well for you should and if they don't you shouldn't.

PC: Fair enough I mean if it works out, it works out. If it doesn't, it doesn't right but that is whether you're single or married.

PAUL DOLAN: Yes. Well that and that's it. And that's and that's the whole point of the book is that is that actually the evidence is very weak on these things. You know the idea that if you're a single woman and you haven't had children - I mean, it applies to some degree to men as well by the way - but you know that you're kind of 'oh that's a shame' you know you kind of 'one day you'll meet the right man' and stuff. And that is a myth because the evidence doesn't overwhelmingly support that claim. And if anything as I say the large numbers of single women that you know actually perfectly happy being so.

PC: Okay I want to just clear up some terminology. When you say single women are you talking about women who are also childless? Are you talking about people when you say compared to married people? Are we talking about marriage in the traditional sense or are we talking about partnered up? Helped me out on the terminology.

PAUL DOLAN: Yes. So I mean it's nice to have all of these things kind of be able to estimate all of these things together. And you know sort of data that would allow us to do that properly. So the two things on those you just drawn attention to one is single and the other is childfree. So dealing with each of those things separately. The single cases is the one that we've just been really talking about is that in life's gamble it's not obvious that it would pay off for you if you were try to maximize expected happiness in some sense that is the right thing to get married. In terms of the child free bit, I mean some of the evidence- Again the evidence, as a boring academics tend to say that the evidence is mixed but it is, and of course we have no randomised control trials. I make this point many times. I always say it every time I speak. We can't allocate people randomly into for example having children what not. You know there's lots of reasons why we can't do that. So we have correlation of data largely and we never know what the counterfactual for people would be if they were to do something different. But the impact of children on life satisfaction - which is one of the most widely used measures - is at best neutral. And some of the more negative effects show up for women than men in some of those data. So again you know I'm not expecting that this would really change, this evidence should really change anything that anybody decides to do. But what I think it might do is give them a better insight into what they might expect if they do go down a particular path. So for example if you choose to be single you may be a bit more confident that your life is going to be okay. If you choose to have children, be ready for the fact that they might not make you happy.

PC: I've got to say- I know you're a professor of behavioural science. If you asked me on any given day - I am married and have children by the way - are you happy with your current life circumstances, depending on the day you might get a yes or you might get a no. So I'm just wanting the evidence. I mean is this mostly anecdotal and how people are feeling when you ask them the question or whether my husband's in the room or not?

PAUL DOLAN: Yes. So the evidence is gathered in different ways. But most of where we have the big data set, so that's us following lots of people over many years, is to ask them a very simple question actually. It doesn't take very long to answer it. But is to ask them sort of something like overall how satisfied are you with your life. You get an answer to that question on a sort of 10 point scale, seven point scale, whatever. And then to find out all sorts of other stuff about them which includes whether they're married, which includes whether they have children and all sorts of other things besides. And then to estimate the impact of those attributes on the overall score. That's where most of where we talk about happiness research. That's typically what we're talking about. There are other datasets where we asked people more directly how they're fitting in particular activities and episodes, so which would include for example whether they're spending time with children as compared to doing other things. And if you look at if you look at happiness just measure sort of been a pleasure. And then children don't come out so well in terms of time spent with them. One of the things I've argued in my first book, Happiness by Design, is that you take account of also purpose which is the extent to which what you do feels like it's meaningful, fulfilling. And when you add that into the mix then time spent the children does a little better.

PC: Okay, I want to bring two more guests into our conversation Bella DePaulo studies happiness and single life at the University of California Santa Barbara. She's the author of Singled Out, and yes, she is single. Bella's in Summerland, California. And Andrea Mrozek is the Program Director of Carter's family. It's a think tank that focuses on family and marriage. She is married with a child. She's in Ottawa. Hi to both of you.

ANDREA MROZEK: Hello.

BELLA DEPAULO: Hi.

PC: Andrea Mrozek. What do you make of what you've just heard from Paul Dolan?

ANDREA MROZEK: Well new research is always interesting but I would say that there's a body of research that exists over a couple of decades that suggests that married adults are happier than unmarried adults and not just that, that married women, even married mothers are happier than unmarried women. So it's an interesting piece of research and he's provided some nuance as contrasted with some of the media in his comments. But I'm going to stick with the with the existing body of research that suggests that marriage does provide happiness. And I'd also add an interesting thing because marriage isn't always intended to provide happiness and yet it does anyways.

PC: And Bella DePaulo where are you on all this, on what you've just heard?

BELLA DEPAULO: I completely disagree with Andrea. What she is referring to is a body of research this is massively flawed. It uses the kinds of techniques that totally confound causality and correlation. And the more recent studies, that are much better studies that follow the same people many years, thousands of them over the course of their lives show something very different. And there are now more than 18 of these studies. What they show that when people go from being single to getting married they don't become any happier than they were when they were single. At best they get a little bit of extra happiness right when the marriage starts. But that's only for people who get married and stay married. And for health, the more recent studies, the most sophisticated studies of health are actually showing that people - by their own reports of their health - are becoming less healthier after they get married than they were before. So this whole notion that marriage is this magical transformation that turns miserable single people into blissful couples that's just gone.

ANDREA MROZEK: I never said that I actually was single for 20 years. So certainly this idea that single people are sad and miserable is a complete myth. But the realities of the research I would disagree with the characterization of that. But I'd also talk about other factors such as attachment and the desire to know and be known and that lives on regardless of whatever the research says. Let's pretend that Bella's characterization of the research is absolutely correct, then we still need to grapple with the fact that many young women and men - but I'm a woman so focus on women - many young women are looking for that attachment to know and be known, to have children. [Cross talking]. We need to be able to have a form to create. A family form to carry it.

BELLA DEPAULO: You don't be attached to a sexual partner single people have genuine full blown attachments to close friends, to relatives.

ANDREA MROZEK: Absolutely no disagreement there.

BELLA DEPAULO: And they are known and they are and they get to know other people and they are known by them. So there is nothing necessary about a sexual partner.

PC: You know here here's what I'm hearing. This is kind of the zero sum game about women. If you're single you're unhappy and someone will argue I'm happy and unmarried and I'm happier and all this stuff. The question though becomes this: There is a stigma of being single arguably still in 2019. Paul Dolan, what did you find out about stigma?

PAUL DOLAN: Well this is a thing I think that's really interesting is that that's changed. This to me highlights the fact that it very obviously there's no one size fits all approach for everybody. And the idea that we would be prescribing something that on average at best is probably going to be new 20s impact seems to me to be rather bizarre. Instead people still seem to be wedded to this idea that marriage is best. This idea that it's marriage. One day you're going to meet someone and live happily ever after. It's interesting that some of the media fallout from this has been you know really shocked dichotomy between people who seem to see this as a zero sum game. And actually if we just respected and accepted difference a bit more, then we could all be happier. One of the reasons- there's lots of little reasons why we, I think why we might have this kind of clinging to this marriage is best notion. And it's particularly prominent I think in the current age where people feel essentially threatened by of the changes that are taking place. We feel we could have to some degree that the older of our world is kind of falling apart through economic, social, political unrest and reasons. And so we need institutions and organizations to cling to. And I think marriage provides that for us. It gives us some kind of security everything. Else might be going wrong but at least we've still got marriage. And I just want to kind of call into question whether that's- you know that isn't for everybody. That's fine for some people but we just need to be much much more accepting of the fact that other people will lead alternative lives. That's fine. And I think if we did that we could all be happy as the result whether you marry or otherwise.

PC: Bella DePaulo you did a very popular TED X talk a couple of years back. It was called No One Ever Told You about People who are Single. So tell us about your experience as a single woman.

BELLA DEPAULO: Yes. Well I've been singing my whole life. I'm 65 years old. I will always be single. It's what I choose. I'm in a category that I call single at heart. And those are people for whom living single is how they live their best, most fulfilling and most meaningful lives. And it doesn't mean something grudging like 'Oh it's okay to be single, oh single it's better than being in a bad relationship'. No. Single for people who are single at heart is plan A.

PC: Do you get stigma? Like how do you see the stigma 2019 of being a single woman?

BELLA DEPAULO: Oh yeah definitely. There is still- in fact I coined the term single-ism to refer to the stereotyping, stigmatizing and discrimination against people who are single and there are the kind of everyday examples like you opened up with the Sex and the city examples. But there are also many more very serious examples. For example in the United States there are more than a 1000 laws at the federal level that benefit and protect only people who are legally married. And that context says something about everything else we're discussing. Like whether people who get married get happier. Well they don't. And that's especially amazing considering all the advantages they have that single people don't have. Married people are celebrated and [unintelligible] for I call that matrimania. And in contrast single people get stereotyped, stigmatized, put down, marginalized etc. And yet single people are doing well despite all that.

PC: Andrea Mrozek, what do you want to say to what you just heard?

ANDREA MROZEK: Yes several things. First of all, again, I've lived in both worlds, two decades as a single woman, happy, content, working. And now as a mother of a less than three month old. So forgive me my sleep deprived state if I make less sense than usual, but that hadn't decreased my happiness and I bring up children because they're the reason, or my child, there's a reason why the laws prioritize marriage and that's because we had and we've forgotten this. But there was an important factor to marriage which is it's the best way and the safest way to raise children and it has in the past a strong connection to children. And so when we look at how the state prioritize that particular family form we have to consider that it was with children in mind that we did so. As regards stigma, as a single person, we have all kinds of celebratory things; career successes, 40 Under 40 top, top 30 under 30,. All these sorts of things. Try going to a networking event and saying you're a mother instead of presenting your business card and you will quickly learn that we do not have matrimania in Canada today. We have something that is more even keel and allows people to live as they like to live. If you're single at heart, fantastic. But if you are a young woman today seeking out marriage and family it's actually far more difficult than it should be.

PC: Paul Dolan, what I'm hearing is sort of a traditional view versus a more non-traditional view of the place of women in the world, what we've been told and what we aspire to and all of those things. Is that what we're really getting to at the root of all of this?

PAUL DOLAN: I mean I just as I say in the book, it's really about seeing whether there's any really strong associations between some of these narratives and happiness. And most of the time that they're quite weak in this huge variation. I mean that's the point I think is being drawn out, this huge individual variation. Can I just quickly say something about men though that might be worth just to note?

PC: Well you are a man. So please do.

PAUL DOLAN: The evidence seems to be much clearer in favour of men getting married than it is women. If you looked at lots of that particularly the health indicators and health measures. Men do seem to benefit a lot from marriage in comparison to women where some of the effects flicker. And that's interesting isn't it, in relation to the narrative around getting married. Because I suspect still, while I suspect the Canada's probably no different to most other places that the pressure on women to marry is probably greater than it is on men. And yet the benefits if anything that the margins are probably greater for men than they are for women to marry.

PC: So give me an example like where is the men are happier being married than being single, beyond this are the cultural stereotypes that are out there.

PAUL DOLAN: Well it shows up mostly in the health effects, not so much in happiness affects. The rest proceedings they just been one thing that's being looked at. But there's lots of papers where when we look at health they're awesome. They're awesome. You know again the evidence is mixed. It's kind of a boring thing to keep saying that the evidence is mixed. I hate to have to say that all the time. But when you look at health effects like generally there are more health benefits to men from marriages and there are women, although sometimes some of the evidence shows that there are also women, to. But the point about it being a gamble I think is really really really really important and that means that everyone should be allowed to judge whether that for them is something that they wish to do. And I and I have to agree with better about the single-ism important particularly in the workplace. I mean we tend to still discriminate against single people in terms of who gets the first dibs on holidays and who's expected to carry some of the load when they're married. Particularly their colleagues with children take time off. So so I do think we need to think more [unintelligible] about that how we treat single people in the workplace and in society more. And just again you know I'm married with two kids but who cares. I mean, we should be treating everyone fairly and equally insofar as it's possible.

PC: Andrea Mrozek.

ANDREA MROZEK: Can I jump in there. I think that idea that we treat single people poorly. I mean I clearly I didn't experience it. But there's also this idea that everybody should be able to work all the time. And I'm as guilty of this as anybody, having an expectation that people will stay late. If you're a married person with children, you want to generally get home at a decent time be able to get dinner with your family and put your kids to bed. And I didn't have much sympathy for that. Why can't we all just work and finish the project through. We're not done yet. Stay at the office. So I don't necessarily see that stigma.

PC: But again it's economic privilege right like some people have to go home and pick up their kids or be at home with their kids because they don't have childcare or can't afford childcare. They just can't stay.

ANDREA MROZEK: Yes that's it. My point that's kind of my point is that you have less options as a family and you want to be able also to stay and see your children in the evening hours if you're working all day. So the stigma associated I just flat out reject that and I really have lived it. I've lived the both lives and I don't see it.

BELLA DEPAULO: Well it's not just about anecdotes though. There is a lot of data systematic studies showing discrimination against single people. So you can't just dismiss it out of hand because it doesn't match your anecdotal experience.

ANDREA MROZEK: No that's true. And the other thing about the research that Professor Dolan was speaking about is these comparisons. I think he's comparing men and women. But I think it is more valuable to compare women and women and see what the health benefits are for married versus unmarried and instead of you know there is evidence of a drop in women in marriage are less happy than men in marriage. And so I'm not contesting that. But I think it's more interesting to compare apples and apples and see and discuss why it would be if there's happiness. For example there's a U curve in happiness over the life course and most people are happier at the beginning of their lives. And then there's a dip and then happiness goes up at the end.

BELLA DEPAULO: That's more what happens to married people. And new study shows that if you look at people between the ages of 40 and 85 the people who have never been married, show it's an upward trajectory. They don't do that loopy thing that you're describing.

PC: Paul Dolan, I'm wondering is there - I'm not even sure if you've looked at this - but is there any difference in happiness levels when it comes to same sex couples or alternatives to a heterosexual marriage?

PAUL DOLAN: No there might be some data that amongst really- most of the data actually comes from large household surveys and unfortunately the numbers of people who are living in in those kinds of relationships are relatively small in the sample. So we don't have very much good data to be able to speak directly to that question. There was data from the U.K. that showed that in the time, this is a little while ago So this is not that recent, it's in the last few years, but not that recent since we've got gay marriage, but people that were in civil partnerships as they were then in the U.K. did report quite high levels of happiness. But I think they tended to be after if they lived in London then if they lived in some of the other regions of the U.K. which might speak to the tolerance that there might be a difference in the extent to which gay couples were accepted in different parts of the U.K. at that time.

PC: Well I've only got a few seconds left but I want to end with this. What you want us to take away? You reignited this debate. What is the point? Can women just be happy with for their life situations? Like isn't it about finding inner contentment?

PAUL DOLAN: So this is something interesting so I don't know. You know you have no idea what the are going to- You know you got to talk about lots of things. You have a conversation with the audience about lot's things that you don't know what's going to be taken away. Interesting that this was taken away. It's interesting that that this then created such interest in this kind of media storm almost. And so it just kind of reminds me, you expect me to say this, it reinforces the arguments I make in the book is that happiness has to be a zero sum game, that people can choose the life path that speak to them. And so far as they're not harming other people let me deal with it.

PC: I want to thank all three of you for a respectful conversation today. Appreciate all your time. Thank you.

ANDREA MROZEK: Thank you.

BELLA DEPAULO: Thanks.

PC: Paul Dolan is a professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics and the author of Happy Ever After. We reached him in Brighton, England. Bella DePaulo is the author of Singled Out and a researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara and Andrea Mrozek is the Program Director of Carter's family. It's a think tank that focuses on family and marriage. She's in Ottawa. I know. I know you have things to say. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC, facebook.com/cbcthecurrent. You can leave a comment there or you can e-mail us by going to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Okay. Coming up singer songwriter Jully Black will be singing the praises of putting down are ubiquitous devices and easing off social media. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. The Friday edition of The Current. Back in a bit.

Why Jully Black wants kids to put down their phones and make a connection

Guests: Jully Black, Jenny Odell

PC: Hi again I'm Piya Chad Patty. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

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My screen time is pretty high. I was comparing it with my mom the other day and she is like three hours a day and mine's is like almost eight hours a day. So I would definitely see my phone as a one of the bigger aspects of my life.

PC: Isabelle Bain is a Grade 12 student in Toronto and I'm not sure how surprised I really should be that she spends eight hours a day on her phone. Of course plenty of us spend our days glued to our screens and we have all heard about the downsides of all that endless scrolling and updating, including the ironic effect social media seems to have of disconnecting us from one another on IRL which means in real life BTW - by the way. We asked Isabelle and her 14 year old friend Carly Gladstone about it and we had no trouble reaching them at school, on the phone.

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Often my friends will say something like 'Oh I left my phone at home and now I have to go home to get it', whereas I don't mind not having my phone on me. That said, I still use my phone a lot. I find myself taking out my phone even when I don't need it just to check social media or just because I don't have anything else to do. And I definitely do think that I could use it less. But I never find-- like I never actually put the time into stopping using it as much. Yes I used my phone quite a bit. It's always by my side. I'm constantly checking various forms of social media where I'm playing games on my phone because I'm bored. I actually deleted Instagram a year ago because I was not enjoying what it was doing to my mindset. I know it's very scary or typical but like you start seeing like people doing exciting adventures and you start thinking your life isn't good enough. You start comparing, things like that. And also I was like concerned about like how many likes I was getting and how many followers I had, and I thought it was a pretty like poisonous mindset to have.

PC: Well our next guest would like to change that kind of mindset. Canadian singer songwriter Jully Black is speaking for the 2019 campaign called Unplugged to Connect which is being launched today. It is organized by the Boys and Girls Club of Canada and Jully Black blocks in our Toronto studio. Hi.

JULLY BLACK: Hello.

PC: I have to just say, we both have our phones right next to us and yes we're looking at them.

JULLY BLACK: Yes. So I'm actually doing some Instagram live. I want people to know what's happening. Yes. It's kind of like it's a backward unplug. I'm telling them to unplug. It's really it was a part of the movement.

PC: It's a subversive move.

JULLY BLACK: Yes there you go.

PC: Okay let's talk about that tape we just heard. What are you thinking as you listen to those girls talk about their social media habits?

JULLY BLACK: Well I'm thinking back to a time when we actually did touch and feel and play ball and you know it was like we wanted to go outside to connect, but now if you send kids outside it's punishment.

PC: Or they go outside their phones.

JULLY BLACK: Or they go outside with their phones. You know it's sad but it's also I love that there's the-- It's revelatory. You know I don't think we give the teens and the kids enough credit to having some young wisdom, them recognizing this doesn't feel good. That inner guide has been there since birth. These follow babies.

PC: So you know when I talk to my husband and my friends we all can come up this conversation like 'oh I spend too much time on my phone'. I mean you can find people who spend no time but most people like 'yes I spend too much time', and that's what those girls said, you know 'I do, I know I'm spending too much time'. They're very aware of that right. They say sometimes I do it because I'm bored and all those things. How much do you relate to all of that?

JULLY BLACK: I'm kind of in the middle at this point because I've been doing a lot of work over the years, especially once my mom like passed away. Spending time, being her caregiver for a year and a half, social media. What? You know likes views and follows. What? You so you start realizing where the priorities lie. And so now fast forward I say you know my mom's last breath became my first breath. And so I take time to breathe and really and feel the ground under my feet and like I'm one that's typically on social media quite often. But now it's meaningful I unfollowed 5000 people. You know I really deliberately decided to see on my feed where I want to be or we know where I already am.

PC: I looked at your Twitter feed and just for comparison's sake compared it to mine. So you you tweeted in the last couple days a couple times now. I tweeted a whole heck of a lot. Now most of it is about the Raptors - which are like tweeting about right now during the playoffs - but you have pulled back your diet of social media.

JULLY BLACK: Yes.

PC: How hard was that to do?

JULLY BLACK: Well it was challenging but in 2016 into 2017 I took four months off completely, deleted the apps. How about my fingers kept veering to the area. I'm like- This is- this was- this is mastering me. And it really, a moment of faith, is like I can't. Whether it's food, money, sex, now social media, it can't be my master. So I had to really you know accept and admit that I had an addiction to this thing.

PC: Okay. That's an interesting word because there are people who are listening to kind of eye rolling going 'How hard is it, just don't go on the social media, Jully, just four months. Big deal. We all have lives outside of our online. Go do that'. But what you're saying it was harder than you thought it might be.

JULLY BLACK: Oh my goodness. So much harder then people were like 'Are you okay?' Like there was that reach out. Like 'Is everything good? How can I help?' I was like Wow. I just took a break from social media to actually social life. Go figure.

PC: And for you there's a unique part to this because you're an artist. You want to get your art out there. You want people to hear you and they want engage with you, get to know the Jully Black behind the persona that they know. So how much did you have to balance that? Like if I get off this thing then the thing that kind of helps me do my work or at least get my music out there isn't being done.

JULLY BLACK: Well there was fear at first. For sure. False Evidence Appearing Real. I realized know what. No no no. I come from a generation where we didn't have social media. I sold most of my records before Instagram, Facebook, all that good stuff. And so for me I realized that forever is a long time. And I remember I saw Jay-Z in an interview and he said you spend the least amount of time at Number One. So why focus on that, on that grind on that. That's- it's fearful. It just doesn't feel good. And so it's been way simpler now where I'm like, okay, I'm intentionally involved with Boys and Girls Club Unplugged Connect. Let's help the other generation. At least, you know, I'm 41 years old, so I can help an 18 year old not be this way by 41 that I'm doing my job.

PC: You just mentioned the Boys and Girls Club which are doing this Unplugged to Connect campaign. How do you get involved?

JULLY BLACK: Well I was a part of the Boys and Girls Club as a child. Is amazing and so when they reached out they knew I still had my heart there. And so this is so in full alignment. Because if I have to be a part of the solution - in some way shape or form and not a matter of it wasn't more. It wasn't good enough for me to be like, okay, I sold this amount of records streams, and I have this amount of likes, views and follows. That self-serving is very narcissistic and I recognize that it's time for me to really flip it and serve and serve the next generation.

PC: So four months of the diet.

JULLY BLACK: Digital detox.

PC: Digital detox. And you had some self-awareness as you just said.

JULLY BLACK: I went vegan too at the same time.

PC: Okay. The two are not connected.

JULLY BLACK: You know what's funny I think I just maybe needed another assignment, and so I poured that time into health and nutrition. I launched a fitness organization, health and fitness organization, One Hundred Strong and Sexy.

PC: You have more time to do these other things.

JULLY BLACK: I had more time. But guess what. That's what I realized. We cannot make more time. We can only create more capacity. So what are you doing less of to do more of. And I was like wow all this time became available.

PC: Okay, so time is getting more time. It's one of the things that changed when you did your Digital Detox what else?

JULLY BLACK: Down 18 pounds. I've been keeping it real. 18 pounds of inflammation of this like you know mindless eating was happening. I had in the popcorn bag. Scroll. Scroll. scroll. Na. Na. Na. That was something that changed as well. Deliberately reaching out to my family members. Spending time. Creating like Sunday dinner this and like events. New traditions. And that also helped with you know after my mom passed on because we had to create new traditions, not search for the old ones. Oh we used to do this with mom, down, low vibration. Think that now we're celebrating this day instead, and we're going to do you know just really continue to build our lives. So that's what changed for me.

PC: A lot of people and especially young people if they think about, or actually do get off social media for a while, one of the biggest concerns is FOMO, right, fear of missing out. Like a lot of the information about you know our personal lives what our friends are doing to what celebrities are doing and all that other stuff to news information is tied to our social media. Did you have FOMO?

JULLY BLACK: No. You know what? I entered into like it's like I graduated. I got this like life PHD. I got this new wisdom I became an activist. Like things happened through me after I left. I released all that comparison-it is. We sign up to be rated, to be judged, and to compare. That's what social media is really. You're offering yourself up to be judged. And so I was over that you know.

PC: Except the counter argument is, yes, all those things are and can be true but social media also provides this sense of community, especially people who might be dealing with an issue that they want to find community that they can't find in their real life or feel safe to talk about. I don't know my mental health challenges or something sometimes it's easier to put it out there in the world, see where it goes and have the strangers gather around and you, and find community. And to that you say what?

JULLY BLACK: You can find community or you could find a victim mentality. You could pitch a tent really in the space where everyone's 'oh poor you. What are you doing?' After that, after that post, after the come to Jesus the 9 wha wha, who's are your true support system? It's not online. The real people are going to come hold your hand, actually grab your hand, let's go. You [unintelligible] welcome knock on my door. Haven't heard from you in a while. I'm going to pull up to your door. This time. And it's I've lost friends to suicide and it's we have to pay closer attention, really, not just look at me like, okay, yes, she is having another day, he's having another moment. No no no. It's time to literally reconnect.

PC: What's your relationship with social media nowadays? I said you've tweeted only a couple of times the last couple of days.

JULLY BLACK: I'm the master of my social media, it doesn't master me. I use it to truly have meaningful messages, go out there. And sometimes it is not the meaningful messages. This is the salad I ate. This is where I had a really big poo. It just is what it is the most authentic place for me to dwell. And it doesn't matter if it's one like or a thousand likes. That doesn't matter anymore. Thank you, Lord. Took a long time.

PC: You know I have to say it's only recently that I get the weekly report of how much time I've been on my phone. And the thing about it, for me, was oh my goodness I spend this much time on a daily basis on my phone. So was shocking to me. After I got rid of all my denial, like, oh it's just when my phone lights off or something.

JULLY BLACK: Right.

PC: But cutting back every week by a little bit. It's like not eating the cookie at three o'clock in the afternoon. Like it's not- for me it's not about like I'm going to get off. I'm not committed to just getting off the social media.

JULLY BLACK: And you don't have to. You don't have to. A little bit- The 10 minutes you do is better than the 50 minutes that you don't do. Some people think they got to work out for an hour. Do 10 minutes a day. Do some push-ups. Do some crunches. It adds up. A year later you going to look back and be happy that you started today. Bite size.

PC: Okay we got to turn off your Instagram right now because we're done.

JULLY BLACK: Are we're done.

PC: I think we're done.

JULLY BLACK: We're done. Bye guys.

PC: Bye. Jully Black is a Canadian singer and songwriter in Toronto. She's also a spokesperson for the Boys and Girls Club of Canada's 2019 Unplug to Connect campaign. It's being launched today. My next guest says the rise of social media has turned attention into a commodity. Jenny Odell is an artist and lecturer at Stanford University and the author of How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. She's in Oakland California. Hi to you.

JENNY ODELL: Hi.

PC: So you just heard Jully Black talking about her quote unquote "struggles with unplugging from social media" which resonate with a lot of people. How common do you think that feeling is?

JENNY ODELL: I mean just from observing you know my friends and people around me it would seem to be fairly common. And I've definitely seen friends you know try to get off social media or get off social media for a little bit and it definitely seems to be a struggle at least at first.

PC: Mm hmm. So you talk about this all being part of something called the attention economy. What is that?

JENNY ODELL: Strictly defined as just you know an economy that buys and sells attention. So that would be the amount of time that you spend on a platform or an app especially designing things to keep you there. Things like notifications. Little Red bubbles around things. Just things that are very explicitly made to capture your attention. I also count as part of the attention economy a kind of broader consequence of that which is a certain kind of mindset. Photo is one example of that but just kind of this feeling that you are obligated to be online and expressing yourself all the time and that if you don't do this you somehow cease to exist. And also you know the idea of the personal brand that you need to be kind of constantly grooming and constantly checking back in on. I think this also come from you know the idea that everyone else is doing it so I need to.

PC: And then you talk about attention as a commodity. What do you mean by that?

JENNY ODELL: You know on the most kind of simplistic level it's sort of like you only have so much attention, similar to how you only have so much time. And so again this is something that I think others have written about. If you only have so much then it becomes this question of how much attention are you spending on something like social media which is pretty shallow.

PC: The third part of the title of your book is How to Do Nothing. I know what nothing is by its definition but what's the call here? What do you mean do nothing?

JENNY ODELL: I think what I really mean is to do nothing goal oriented. Like you know self-improvement optimization like towards some kind of goal and which is fine. You know it's I want to improve one self but you can get sort of obsessive about it. Similarly to how you can get obsessive with the number of likes on an Instagram post. So by nothing I think I really mean just anything that's kind of opposed to the obsessively optimized ball.

PC: When did you in your own life go 'huh, this is a concern for me. All of this'?

JENNY ODELL: I think it had been building for a long time and then really it was sort of a moment and in late 2016. It was a combination of both kind of what I was seeing on social media and in the media generally after the election and my relationship with social media at that time. And then it was also there was a fire here in Oakland in a warehouse and a lot of people died and some of them were friends of friends. So it was this kind of moment of almost like paralysis which I now realize in retrospect was not paralysis. It was just me wanting to not express myself for a moment and and experiencing that in the context of this expectation that one would express themselves, and that one would express and respond to outrage 24 hours a day.

PC: And then when you do?

JENNY ODELL: Nothing. I started going to a Rose Garden and that's about five minutes from my apartment and almost in an unintentional way, I just found that I was going there pretty much at any time that I could be there. I mean this isn't the winter, so the roses are not even blooming, and I would just sit there and not even read and just do nothing. And so a lot of what the book is about came out of me wondering like why I was doing that and what is actually happening when I'm sitting there and how is this different from the rest of my day.

PC: You teach at Stanford. I mentioned that. I imagine a lot of your students are in their 20s. What are you noticing about their use of social media? I know I'm cutting a big swath here because everyone is different, but like when you look at them and you see what they're doing on social media, what are you noticing?

JENNY ODELL: One thing I've noticed is for example my classes of break in the middle and when I started teaching five or six years ago at least some of the students would go outside. And increasingly I've noticed that the word 'break' like as soon as I say it sort of means like I can now look at my phone. It's sort of troubling to me that in the context of a break from class it's replace the idea of actually like physically going somewhere else. It's like you're going somewhere else on your phone but you're not actually moving your body outside.

PC: You know one of the things that we all notice is the griping about social media right. Like it doesn't make me feel good. It's too much. It's too negative. It's just a bunch of people yelling at each other. And yet - and yet many people who complain are still using social media. I mean do you have a sense of why people are using social media even if they don't want to?

JENNY ODELL: My provisional sort of answer is that I think we've always wanted to share information with each other and be connected to others. And so there's nothing wrong with the sort of the concept of social media to me, like the idea of being able to share ideas quickly and that can be really useful and interesting. The problem for me is with commercial social media which has a financial incentive to keep you on it as long as possible. That is not a utilitarian thing. And so I ISIS suspect that the reason that some people are on social media is because they are going to it for those things, like for the genuinely funny thing that you see from your friends or from the useful information that you didn't know about. And then you go there for that and then you get trapped by all the persuasive design techniques and that's the part that I think feels bad. And it's also the part that's driving the kinds of shallow expression that you find on social media.

PC: You know Instagram - and for people who aren't on Instagram or don't know what it is - this is where people put their photos up of various things. You can follow your celebrities or your friends or whatever. It is a big time sucker and I want you to just listen to Nanny J. Amy. She is a beauty influencer and she spends a lot of time on Instagram.

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Honeslty, there'll be times I'll be scrolling through supporting funds and just seeing their pictures and I'm just like wow you guys are doing everything, like I need to get my life together and be as productive as you are. But that's not always a good thing. I remember for like the last two three months I just had something for like every single day. And I was trying to be as productive as I could be but it just made me so tired. So yes Instagram just makes me want to be productive but then also I can sit there scrolling for hours and that's not very productive.

PC: Jenny Odell how does our need to be productive factor into the attention economy?

JENNY ODELL: I think we've grown up in a culture of needing to have something to show for your time. I think that's been true for a long time. And so it almost from that kind of scheme seems immoral almost to waste time, like it's this idea that you're given as much time and so you should make use of it. And I think something like Instagram it just exacerbates that existing situation where every day you're expected to put something up. And it's as if you didn't put something up it's like you wasted that day or that didn't that they didn't exist, and then you're constantly subjected to the productions of other people. And I consider something like Instagram likes to be kind of a form of like market research in a horrible way where you know if you have an Instagram account you start to learn like what kinds of images get likes and which don't, and then obviously that is starting to influence the kinds of experiences that you seek out or even just the way you have experiences.

PC: You know there's the part of this that is about personal responsibility that we've been talking about, but there's also the corporate responsibility. What responsibility do you think tech companies have or should have and the kinds of behaviours that they're cultivating or at least helping cultivate?

JENNY ODELL: I think there definitely should be some responsibility and I think that's a conversation that's already happening. You know you have tech or ex-tech people talking about trying to get rid of things like persuasive design or providing at least design guidelines for something different. I guess I'm just a little bit sceptical about how much can actually be achieved from within something like a tech company, given that it has real reasons to design things in a way so that they'll have more users using it more of the time. It's really great and very telling me that you see this kind of movement happening from within Tech to design things in a way so that it doesn't feel horrible all the time. But I also think there's a lot of potential for them to be regulated from the outside.

PC: Jenny Odell thank you for your time today.

JENNY ODELL: Thank you.

PC: Jenny Odell is an artist. Her book is How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. She was in Oakland, California.

DANIELLE CARR: Hi, I'm Danielle Carr - a producer here at The Current. This week the show was produced by: Idella Sturino, Alison Masemann, Howard Goldenthal, Karin marley, Samira Mohyeddin [MOY-yid-din], John Chipman, Julie Crysler, Ines Colabrese, Jessica Linzey, Sarah-Joyce Battersby, Julianne Hazlewood, Julian Uzielli and Max Paris. Special thanks to the CBC's Mary-Catherine McIntosh in Halifax, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Susan McKenzie in Montreal, and Anne Penman in Vancouver. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producers are Padraig Moran, Emilie Quesnel and Kirsten Fenn. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata, Shamhan Bhuiyan and Luke Williams. Our technical producer is Gary Francis. Our documentary editor is Joan Webber, and our presentation producer is Liz Hoath. Our senior producers are Pacinthe Mattar in Toronto, and Cathy Simon and Geoff Turner in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Willow Smith. And of course, the host of the Current - Anna Maria Tremonti.

PC: And that is the current for this Friday stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe is in the guest host chair today and she's going to be joined by the winner of this year's Griffin Poetry prize. Prize was handed out last night and it was given to Victoria based writer Eve Joseph. So stay tuned for that. And Sunday at noon you can catch me in my regular gig hosting Out in the Open here on CBC Radio 1. I'm going to be speaking with Bellamy Shoffner. Bellamy came upon a group of young black boys in the park and she believed one of them pulled out a gun and she considered calling the police for help. But Bellamy was also afraid police might end up in a confrontation with the boys. So I'll be asking why is it so hard to ask for help. Join me Sunday at noon or download the podcast at cbc.ca/open. Okay. We're going to end the week with a little music from one of the guests from earlier this half hour. This is Jully Black with Until I Stay. I'm Pia Chattopadhyay. Thanks for lending us your ear here on the Friday edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[song]

Friday June 7, 2019 Full Transcript

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